King Leodegrance of Cameliard is taken prisoner by King Rience of North Wales. Since King Arthur loves the former and hates the latter (we're told), he and kings Ban and Bors gather an army and goes on a rescue mission, which succeeds. In connection with this rescue mission Arthur also spots Guenevere, Leodegrance's daughter, and falls in love with her for the rest of his life since she's hot. This is such a weird trope, and yet it stays strong even in fairytales written waaaaaaaaay later than this one… King/Prince/Knight sees a really hot princess, and bam!, he's in love, despite the fact that he knows nothing about her personality or anything, and however hot she is she's a) likely not the only hot woman in the realm, and b) unlikely to stay as hot for the rest of her life; people age, after all.
Next, King Arthur sleeps with King Lot's (of the Orkney Islands) wife when she visits his court, because she's also hot, and throughout this book it's taken for granted that although you might fall in love for the rest of your life after seeing one hot lady, you'll still naturally gonna bang any other hot lady you meet later on. Unfortunately, she's Arthur's sister, but Arthur doesn't know this because he was unnecessarily adopted away by Merlin as a baby. They later on have an incest baby named Mordred. (Merlin's unnecessary adoption scheme: The gift that keeps on giving!).
There's a short passage where Arthur meets King Pellinore who hunts the Questing Beast - we're not told much about QB except that it's big and very strange, and there's a rumble in its stomach that sounds like thirty hounds (specifically thirty, not just a large sum of hounds) barking. After that, Merlin, temporarily magicked into the likeness of a young teenager, pops up. Merlin is acting all mysterious, and be like "I knooooow you… I know your thoughts… and I know that your father was King Uther Pendragon, and your mother was Igraine."
King Arthur says the child is clearly just bullshitting because there's no way some random fourteen-year-old could know who his parents are, and also this is false.
!!!!!!!!!! Arthur himself doesn't know about his biological parents yet, even though he's learnt that he was adopted!!!!!
Merlin rides away, and comes back in old man shape. He asks Arthur why he looks so sad and thoughtful. Arthur tells him about the weird kid who was just there. Merlin replies that everything the child said was absolutely true, plus the Queen of the Orkney Islands that Arthur had sex with is actually his sister and now God is displeased with him for making an incest baby. That baby is gonna be the end of Arthur and all his knights.
Arthur's like WTF????? And who are you?
Merlin tells him who he is, and also that he was the kid, he just shapeshifted.
But seriously!!!!!! So far, we've seen Merlin telling other kings right and left that Arthur is actually the son of Uther and Igraine and so the true heir to the throne, when said kings have shown reluctance to accept magic sword-pulling as a basis for government. I took for granted that Arthur himself knew, and that he didn't know that the Orkney Queen was his sister because, IDK, they just went at it without discussing their respective families first, but apparently not. Merlin has told pretty much everyone except Arthur himself, who continued to believe that he was king by virtue of being the chosen one and good at pulling swords out of stones or some shit like that. Only now does Merlin tell him that yeah, you were actually the heir all along, and btw, you banged your sister and made an incest baby that's gonna be your doom.
Arthur's just sitting there like WTF did I just hear?????????
Merlin tries to console Arthur by saying (it's been firmly established by now that Merlin is a precog) that he's gonna die a hero, unlike himself, who's gonna have a shameful death one day. Like, WTF Merlin, that doesn't really make things better! You put Arthur in deep shit by first coming up with this completely unnecessary adoption scheme, then failing to tell him about his biological family despite telling literally every other royal person in Britain, and now you're like "oh sorry for all this, I kind of doomed you" - and Arthur's supposed to feel better because at least he's not gonna die shamefully like you will?
Chapter 20 ends with Arthur inviting Igraine to come see him, and she brings Morgan Le Fay with her.
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